The future belongs to the Bold. The world is so crowded that only those who
have a significant and dramatically different story to tell will grab the
attention of customers.
In a world and age when we have
come to expect good level of service and product as given, only an exceptional
and memorable experience will earn customer loyalty.
Different
breed of organizations are now emerging, they succeed because they have courage, confidence or just sheer chutzpah to pursue a purpose beyond
profit: to engage, entertain and
educate their audiences, who see their customers and employees as members of a
like minded community, who create and administer cult-like following among
their brand – both within and outside their organizations – who are not just
different, but dramatically different and who push to the extreme the
consequences of their dreaded positioning and strategy. Umpqua
Bank is one of the bold brands.
UMPQUA BANK
The
self styled greatest bank in the world, passionately believes, it thinks
banking should be like a great retail experience and even calls its branches
stores to highlight the belief.
South
Umpqua State Bank started in 1963 as a small community bank in South
Oregon. Ray Daus took over as President
in 1994 when the bank had assets of $140m and employed 60 people. Under
his leadership, the bank grew to more than 180 branches (stores), 2,500 people
and over $12b in assets.
Media
outlets like Business Week, New York Times, have repeatedly nominated Umpqua as
one of the coolest places to work.
Fortune Magazine has included Umpqua on its best companies to work for
list, including November 13 in 2008.
Umpqua has positioned itself very
successfully as an integral part of the community and more than just a bank. It encourages its people to work in
community and create store formals that provides a place where customers can
come and spend time, not just bank.
It
has taken it store promise out on to the street through its innovative “handshake marketing”, which promises “something wonderful will
happen to you today”. Its culture
infectious and new employees and acquired businesses have been described as
Umpqaulized.
The
name Umpqua means “raging water” in Native American
dialect, an apt description of the
turbulence that hit the financial sector in 2008/2009. But Umpqua culture helped it grow through the
difficult years.
Bold Practices
- Strip
all back room operations from stores so that only things people did was to
focus 100% on customer experience
- New hires were recruited from retail
companies and they were trained in the complexes of banking and sent to train
at places like Riz Carton (a Five Star Hotel) to learn about delivering
services that knocks you off your feet.
- Empowering
people – we hire decision makers and empower them to make decisions that will
impact our customers as front desk officers.
- We
are part of our community, our over 2,500 employees engage in a volunteer 40
hours a year of their time to non-profit endeavours with focus on
youth/education.
- Measuring the experience – if you are
going to centre our organization on customer experience, you have to be able to
measure the experience. It’s called
return on quality. Our people are
measured as a team and as individual – great incentives for those who do well
and recoach/mentoring to upgrade others to maximize service level.
- With
advancement in technology, most people rarely come to banks now a days, as lots
of banking could be done on phone or online,
but at Umpqua, we try to create a wonderful experience, so that our customer
can say “I think I go to Umpqua Bank and have a coffee while I do some shopping
online, while am there, I might cash a cheque or make a deposit” – a
significant difference created by our core experience.
- Our
bank (store) design format is very unique, we borrow great idea from best
retailer and adapt them to our banking environment.
- Creating a seamless multi-channel
experience – ensure the same culture, the same feeling that the customer get
from walking into our store or branch is also felt on the web, in all call
centres and it must be delivered through all our channels.
-
The Umpqua brand promise – to make
your stop at an Umpqua bank the best thing you did all day.
- Handshake marketing – an example of
this is demonstrated in “random acts of
kindness” when a Manager of a store down the street may ask the manager of
a fast food restaurant to select two tables daily and ask the manager to pay
for their meals, that it’s on Umpqua bank.
Such random kindness spread like wild fire – goodwill to the bank.
- Get
in the flow of social media – The biggest thing about social media site like
twitter is that the conversation is going on about your company regardless of
whether you participate or not, so we decided to participate. You must participate to resolve issues and
ensure positive tweets about us always.
- As a company, your visions moves from being
a project to how we live, breathe and everyone follow suit – culture and brand
are the same you cannot have one without the other.
- Every
single employee attends a motivational moment session every day to inspire us
on the job.
- The
branches are called stores and the bank advertises for new hires in the retail
space (press).
- Employees
are trained in customer service by customer centric organizations like (Five
Star Hotel) Riz Calton Hotels.
- Employees
can spend as long time as it takes to satisfy a customer.
- Any
employee can call the president on any issue.
- Every
employee has to answer the phone with “welcome
to the world’s greatest bank”.
People who don’t want to do it can’t join the bank.
- They
mystery shop at branches of other banks, they are thinking of acquiring, to
check the culture and customer facing operations. The Bank has successfully acquired or umpquatized 23 other banks
since 1994.
Bold
Lessons
- Look outside your industry – Look beyond
your industry to study comparators rather than competitors. They saw what the best retailers were doing
and they applied it to financial services
- Be
the Brand – Walk your talk – Create
a branded customer experience. There is
only one Umpque, the look and feel of the store, the technology used they way
the employee deal with you. All of these
combined together to create a distinctive customer experience that shouts “Umpqua”.
- Embracing
the digital Media – Understanding the power of the internet/social media and
using these as a seamless commercial tool with customers. Mentoring/ responding to tweets, creating
business communities and integrating mobile tech are all important aspects –
but first and foremost in the service of the store.
Bold
HR Policies
- Umpqua
is a brand the understands the importance of the employee experience and works
hard to create a culture that supports the service strategy. Empowering
employees to do whatever it take to satisfy customers, encouraging “random acts
of kindness”, and daily “motivational moments”, are all examples of a
fundamental belief in the power of the people to differentiate a brand.
- From
running advert in the retail space, rather than financial press, to sending new
hires for training to Ritz Carton are examples of bold HR practices mirroring
the strategy.
- Umpqua
created a change culture – almost cult like – because if recognized that the
only way to differentiate in a relatively commoditized area like banking was
through the experience its people could deliver.
So, let’s be bold.
Culled
from: BOLD: How to be bold in Business and Win, by Shawn Smith
and Andy Milligan
No comments:
Post a Comment